brown butter bourbon spice cakelets

With fall still clinging to the air and fiery leaves scattered beneath the trees, now is the time to bake up leaf, acorn, and pumpkin cakelets for a fine addition to any autumn feast!

Fragrant with nutty brown butter and warming spice, these tender cakelets are sweet and perfectly spiced. Dipped in bourbon-cinnamon glaze, there’s simply no better finish to a chilly fall day than a scrumptious mini cake.

In the spirit of giving, I’ve partnered with Nordic Ware to gift one of you with an autumn treats cakelet pan! Nordic Ware is celebrating 70 years as a family owned and operated company. Share your favorite Thanksgiving memory and enter the giveaway below the recipe.

Glaze

1 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2/3 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp bourbon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F and grease and flour a 3-cup cakelet pan. Cook butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it foams, turns clear, and then turns a deep brown, about 6 minutes. Pour brown butter into a glass measuring cup and let cool slightly.

Whisk together flour, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Pour cooled brown butter into a medium bowl and whisk in brown sugar, egg, egg yolk, buttermilk, bourbon, and vanilla until smooth. Add to flour mixture and fold in until combined.

Fill each cavity 2/3 full and tap pan sharply to remove air bubbles. Bake for 20 minutes, until cakelets are golden, spring back to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cakelets in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before inverting onto rack to cool completely.

For the glaze, whisk together melted butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, salt, bourbon, vanilla, and milk in a small bowl. Set rack with cakelets over a piece of wax paper. Dip cakelet tops into glaze and let set on rack before serving.

Nutrition

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Giveaway ends on Monday, November 14, 2016. Open to continental US Residents.Disclosure: Nordic Ware generously provided product for the giveaway. I received no compensation and all opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Hi, I’m Laura and welcome to Tutti Dolci, a baking and desserts blog celebrating all things sweet. Featuring beautiful, approachable recipes for everyday and entertaining, I love to put my own twist on classic desserts and inspire a passion for baking.

53 comments

Your cakelets turned out perfect and tasty flavor combination, Laura. Tasty glaze w/the cinnamon and bourbon. Love that pan…I have a similar one also by Nordic thru WS. 🙂 I need to use it! I’m going to start with your recipe for these adorable brown-butter bourbon spice cakelets!

As a Mom of four (now ages 18-34), I’d say my favorite memory was of watching my kids enjoy pumpkin pie with whipped cream–for the first time–at Grandma’s (my Mom) house. Sure wish we could still go to my folks’ home for the holidays.

Oh my goodness Laura, these sound wonderful! That bourbon glaze and the combination of those warm spices!! Such a treat! My favorite Thanksgiving memory will always be making a turkey sandwich hours after our big dinner and splitting it with my Dad. He would always say he was still full from dinner, but then he’d see me walk into the family room with it, always on rye bread with chips and a pickle, and he’d say, wow that looks good! And I’d say, that’s why one half’s for me and one half’s for you Dad. He’d say the same thing every year and we’d always split it!

My dear mother never really liked cooking, but she threw a great Thanksgiving meal for nearly 20 people every year. I was allowed to help her in the kitchen, and although I don’t remember a whole lot of things, I well remember stuffing celery with cream cheese (fancy!), and stirring the big bowl of bread cubes and Bell’s seasoning that was the base for her fabulous stuffing. Thinking back on it now is bringing a tear to my eye. I miss her so much.

When I was a little girl we had Thanksgiving with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins, a total of 4 adults and 13 kids between our 2 families. There was always so much food, but my favorite was the mini pies my aunt made which were baked in muffin tins, and filled with blueberry or cherry pie filling, topped with whipped cream. It was a rare and special treat.

My favorite Thanksgiving memory was when I made cranberry sauce from scratch. It was that side dish that forever changed my love of scratch cooking. I couldn’t believe the difference between it and the canned stuff!

These cakelets are adorable!!! Perfect for our Thanksgiving Day dessert buffet!! One of my favorite memories is when my parents were visiting and Bill was regaling us with stories from med school—I’ve never laughed so hard!

how sweet are these cakes? and that glaze! my favorite memories are always in the kitchen the day before. listening to music, prepping, setting the table and preparing for my family’s arrival. sometimes the anticipation of the holiday is my favorite part!

My family is small and Thanksgiving hasn’t usually been a big deal for us. My favorite memory is the year my mom and I did Thanksgiving, just the two of us, and shared a Cornish hen instead of a turkey, complete with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and the like!

omg these are too cute!!!! My favorite Thanksgiving memories are cooking my grandmother’s recipes with my mother. So meaningful to feel their connection and forge one with a wonderful woman I never got to meet through the power of cooking! Thanks!

This looks so yummy!!! My favorite thanksgiving memory is when my family and I stayed in a cabin with some close family friends and we had thanksgiving dinner together, even though we had to make some of the food by microwave because our stove wasn’t working.

The kids always played bumper pool after Thanksgiving meal. I have many memories playing with my cousins with oldies music playing and stuffing ourselves till it hurt! For some reason, I always had the lemon meringue pie…there where so many desserts and I always wanted that no matter what season. Whenever I think of bumper pool, it reminds me of lemons!

My most cherished Thanksgiving memories are from when my grandmother was living and hosting the dayat her house. We are a large family but she was always adamant that we all sit around one table to share the meal, so we would put big sheets of plywood and a table cloth over the pool table in the basement. As a kid, it was fun and quirky to sit around such a huge table with aunts, uncles, and cousins all together.